a book problem

Most girls love shopping, but, you guessed it: not me! Don’t get me wrong, I love clothes. I could shop online for hours. But the prospect of going into a store to shop for jeans or tops or whatever kind of stresses me out. Maybe its because shopping online gives you a kind of anonymity. It’s not like I’m buying weird shit, but sometimes I like to shop in private, where no one can see what size I’m trying on, or how much I’m spending. I also don’t like to be accosted by salespeople that leach onto you as soon as you walk into the store. “No, thank you, I’m just looking. Thanks for offering to set up a dressing room, but if you would just leave them unlocked, I am self sufficient enough to go in there myself. And if I need another size, I can find it. Go away. If I need you I will come and get you.” I should just preface every trip to J.Crew with that statement. Because it stresses me out to go shopping, I usually refrain from doing just that. I still wear sweaters from my senior year of high school. I have a maximum of about 10-15 minutes per store when I go there in person, whereas I can spend 45 minutes perusing when I shop online. There is one place I go where I don’t get stressed out, where I could literally spend hours perusing and never be bored, and always spend way more than I should without caring. And that place, ladies and gentlemen, is the bookstore. I could go into the bookstore and spend an hour and a half in there without even looking at my watch. I never feel bad about spending money there. Sometimes I don’t even finish the books I buy! I’ll read about half and then get another one that holds my attention for longer. And I always buy serious books too, I never let myself relax with some cheesy chick lit; everything I read has to be somewhat intelligent. For example, about a month ago I bought Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. I’m bored with it. Isn’t that horrible? So I went and bought three other books. Three. When I have a perfectly good half read book on my nightstand. Why is it that I can spend $60 on a couple of books, but its nearly impossible for me to buy a new pair of shoes without agonizing over it? Forget a Carrie Bradshaw like addiction to shoes, my vice appears to come in the form of a codex with a pretty picture on the cover.